


whenever i'm alone with you / you make me feel like i am young again

by intertwiningwords



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Eddie Lives, First Kiss, Fix It, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, stanley lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 19:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21276650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningwords/pseuds/intertwiningwords
Summary: warnings: homophobic slurs, descriptions of body horror, internalized homophobia





	whenever i'm alone with you / you make me feel like i am young again

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: homophobic slurs, descriptions of body horror, internalized homophobia

Richie stuffed his hands into his pockets, long legs striding down the streets of Derry, everything so foreign, yet somehow familiar too.

Mike had told them to split up (which Richie still thought was a fucking awful idea, for the record), and to find...Well, Richie wasn’t exactly sure what his token was.

In a brilliant moment of word association, the arcade popped into his mind. That place had literal tokens. Although he didn’t remember where it was, his feet seemed to lead him as if on autopilot.

However, it wasn’t the arcade that he stopped in front of. Instead, he found himself standing beneath the movie theater’s marquee. The theater was run down and abandoned, just like everything else in Derry seemed to be. A broken glass door granted him entry, and he stepped carefully across the obnoxiously patterned carpet, taking in the rusted popcorn machine, and—

The photobooth.

A fond smile curled on his face, remembering how all seven of them would squeeze in the tiny booth, pulling silly faces and poses for the camera.

“Ew, Rich, you look so weird in this!” Bev cried, giggling.

“That’s not very nice, Bev! That’s my normal picture face,” he’d replied with an exaggerated pout on his face.

(It absolutely was not. His eyes were wide, nostrils flared, and his mouth was stretched in an inhumanely large grin).

“At least he posed normally for the first one,” Mike sighed, shaking his head fondly.

“You should smile normally for pictures more often,” Eddie told him. “You look...nice.”

Richie had turned pink, any chance of a witty response dying on his tongue.

“Guys the m-movie is st-starting soon,” Bill interrupted, looking at his watch. “Let’s g-go!”

They had all grabbed their pictures from the photobooth and scampered off to watch the movie, and Richie had shared popcorn with Eddie, feeling his stomach do somersaults every time their fingers brushed.

“Rich?”

Pulled out from his memory, Richie turned, expecting to see someone coming to bust him for trespassing, and instead, was met with none other than Eddie.

“Eds? What are you doing here? Mike told us to split up.”

Eddie took a step closer. “I know. But, I wanted to get a chance to talk with you...You know, alone? It’s been a while.”

Richie laughed nervously. “Just 27 years, no big deal. What, uh...What do you wanna talk about?”

“Well, I’ve missed you. I mean, I didn’t remember  _ you _ exactly, but...I knew I missed someone. It’s just good to see you again.”

Richie felt his face flush, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket again. “Are you gonna get all sappy on me now?”

Chuckling, Eddie shook his head. “Sorry. Find your token yet?”

“Nah, not yet.”

“Are you sure?”

He furrowed his brow, about to ask what the  _ hell  _ Eddie meant by that before his eye caught the slot of the photo booth, where a strip of pictures was sticking out. He looked from Eddie to the picture and back again, fear raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

Eddie gave him a reassuring smile (how the hell was he so calm?!) and gestured to the photos. “Go ahead, take them. They’re not gonna bite.”

“In Derry, anything’s possible,'' Richie mumbled, but he bent down to take it anyway. Flipping it over, he looked down at the photos in confusion; it was photos of him and Eddie as children, just the two of them. They were standing way closer than necessary, perhaps just used to have to cram in there with the others. The first photo, they were sticking out their tongues. The second, they were pulling even sillier faces, mouths falling open and eyes crossed. The third, they were both laughing, the photo blurry as they’d been moving too much. And the fourth, their cheeks were pressed together, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, smiling wide.

Richie remembered cutting off the last picture, a moment so small and intimate and scary, he couldn’t bear to have it seen. He hid it between the pages of his copy of  _ The Outsiders _ . When his mother questioned why the strip of photos seemed to be missing one, he shrugged. “It must have not printed properly,” he replied.

“I remember that day,” Eddie said softly, making Richie jump. He hadn’t heard him walk closer, nor had he noticed him peering over his shoulder. “You got your allowance and dragged me to see that scary movie.”

“That movie sucked,” Richie recalled with a small laugh. 

“It totally did. We took these after.”

“Rich, are you okay?” Eddie asked, his hand touching Richie’s shoulder softly.

“I’m fine, yeah. Just...thinking. There’s a lot of memories here, you know?”

Eddie nodded. “I know what you mean. Are you thinking about the good ones or the bad ones?”

“I’m not too sure. I think they’re good, but they have a bad side to them too,” Richie said, biting the inside of his cheek.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked, his grip tightening around the sleeve of Richie’s jacket.

“I mean, I really forgot everything about this place,” he laughed, although it was humorless. “I forgot my whole fucking childhood, I forgot my best friends, and I forgot the first person that I ever loved, and all these years I never dealt with it, so now it’s all just come flooding back —”

“Hey, Rich, slow down! It’s okay, I’ve got you. You can tell me.”

He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes. It was now or never, right? If he could just spit it out, just tell him, even if it wasn’t the full story. Tell him you’re gay, don’t mention the fact that you’re in love with him. Break it to him slowly. Just  _ spit it out _ , Tozier! “Eddie, I...I’m—”

“A flamer?”

“I—What?” Richie’s eyes flew open in surprise, unsure of what he had just heard.

Eddie’s grip tightened, squeezing Richie’s shoulder so tight that it began to hurt. “You’re a flamer, right? A fairy? A fruitcake? That’s what you were gonna tell me, right?”

“Eddie, I—”

But the person in front of him wasn’t really Eddie anymore; his eyes were rolled back and his mouth was growing larger, sharp teeth showing, and he suddenly seemed much taller, making the two of them face to face.

“You really thought that I could love you back?” Eddie, or rather, IT snarled. “You thought I could love a fucking flamer like you? I’m not _ sick _ like you. I’m not _ dirty _ like you.”

“I’m not sick,” Richie stuttered, frozen on the spot with fear. “I’m not dirty.”

“You don’t really believe that,” IT replied. “You might want to, but deep down, you know you’re ashamed. I mean, it took you 27 years to even think about telling your precious little Eddie, right?”

Richie shut his eyes. “This isn’t real,” he said aloud. “It’s not real.”

The hand on his shoulder disappeared, and the growling voice shut up.

Tentatively, Richie opened his eyes and found that he was alone again.

Heart pounding, he raced out of there as fast as he could.

***

He was leaving. No matter what Ben had tried to convince him of, he was fucking leaving. He’d buried all those feelings for too long, and he didn’t want to remember them ever again. He’d forget Eddie, and the losers, and stay single and a goddamn virgin until the day that he died if it meant never facing those feelings again.

As much as he hated to admit it, IT had been right. He  _ was  _ ashamed, and disgusted, and afraid.

He’d been raised his whole life being told that a boy who liked other boys was sick, dirty, and perverted; a  _ freak _ .

He’d heard his father toss around slurs at the dinner table in reference to his more flamboyant clients, and his mother would frown but never correct or scold him. His parents didn’t have an inkling about their own son falling into that group, asked him when he’d settle down with a girl and some kids, and kept asking until the day that his father passed away, and his mother still brought it up on the phone on the rare occasion that they talked.

He remembered words scrawled on the bathroom stalls:  _ “Richie Tozier sucks flamer cock” _ and how he’d gone home that day and cried until his throat felt raw. Stan had scratched it out the next day, perhaps the only time Stan had willingly committed vandalism of school property in his life, and Richie had been too embarrassed, too afraid to even hug him as a thank you.

_ Don’t touch the other boys, Richie. Don’t, or they’ll know your secret. _

Stan.

The temple.

He remembered Stan’s speech at his bar mitzvah.

The secrets we feel like we have to keep.

“Thanks for showing up, Stan.”

Fuck it. He was going to stay.

***

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Eddie asked, furrowing his brow. The action must have hurt the wound on his cheek, as he brought up a hand to prod it afterward.

“Sorry,” Richie replied, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

“If you say so, but if you want it off your chest, I bet I’ll understand.”

He would understand, of course, he would. Any of the losers would, but Eddie was the one beside him, the one who noticed his nervous disposition first, because he  _ always _ understood him the best, or, at least, tried to.

“The clown—IT...While I was getting my token, IT turned into you. So I’ve just been a little on edge. I feel like nothing is real.”

“IT turned into me? What did I do?”

Richie shook his head. “Oh, you just tried to beat me up for all the ‘your mom’ jokes,” he replied, cracking a small smile.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Richie, can’t you just be serious for one second?”

A sigh. “Fine. You just said some really shitty things, that’s all. Stuff I didn’t want to think about. Stuff that...I don’t think you’d ever really say, but it sucked, regardless.”

Eddie’s expression softened, and he sat down beside Richie, their shoulders bumping together as he did so. “Well, whatever I said, I know I wouldn’t say it to you.”

“Thanks, Eds.”

Eddie touched his hand softly, sending an electric spark down Richie’s spine, and he thought about telling him right then and there.

“Where’s Bill?” Mike asked.

And then, the moment was gone as they all rushed to Neibolt.

***

“Richie, I think I did it! I think I killed IT, for real!”

It took Richie a moment to process what had happened—the deadlights, the fire poker through Pennywise, and the fact that Eddie was practically straddling him in the middle of a demon clown’s lair—and, fuck it, it was now or never.

He reached up, grabbed the collar of Eddie’s jacket, and pulled him down into a kiss, messy and totally inappropriate for the situation at play, but it was perfect nevertheless, because Richie had wanted this for almost  _ thirty _ fucking years, and it was finally fucking  _ happening _ .

If Ben and Beverly could find time to confess their love in the middle of this shit, why couldn’t he?

And Eddie kissed him back.

They were quickly startled away from the moment by the sound of Pennywise standing yet again, apparently not dead. Damn, did this demon clown ever die?

Pennywise swung at the two of them, and they jumped away, but Eddie was cut by the end of IT’s pincher, a deep gash in his shoulder, and the losers all managed to make their way into a crevice of the cavern, a moment away from the mortal peril before them.

“Eddie, are you okay?” Bev asked, eyeing the blood dripping down his arm.

“I’m peachy,” he replied, breathless.

Richie was already shrugging off his jacket to wrap around the wound, applying pressure that made Eddie hiss in pain.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Richie whispered, stroking his hair with the other hand.

“I really thought that I killed it,” Eddie croaked. “And I almost did it before too...When I went to get my inhaler...The leper. I had IT’s throat under my hands and for a moment...He actually seemed small, and weak. He was so weak.”

And then Mike had an epiphany.

Who would have thought that all they needed to kill an inter-dimensional shapeshifter was a few choice words?

And with the blood of the monster that had terrorized them since their childhoods on their hands, the losers club hugged one another close, relief washing over them.

Neibolt began to shake, ready to crumble, the inhabitant that haunted it all those years finally gone, and the aching foundation could finally rest, and the six of them all rushed out, a last bit of adrenaline to keep them humble in their time of victory.

They all went to the quarry then, jumping off the cliff in silence, the playful childhood splashes and games of chicken nothing but the past as they washed blood and dirt from their skin.

“This is so unsanitary,” Eddie finally said. “I have two open wounds and I’m swimming in this gross fucking lake. If this gets infected, it’s all your guys’ fault.”

Then, Bev started laughing. And then Richie lost it too, and soon they were all laughing, even Eddie.

Maybe their childhood wasn’t as behind as they’d thought.

***

Back at the hotel, Mike gave Stanley’s cellphone a ring.

He’d gotten discharged from the hospital that morning, with a referral for a therapist and bandages up his wrists.

“Did it work? Did you kill IT?” he asked, his voice hushed.

“We did,” Mike told him.

“Thanks for the help, Stan!” Richie called into the phone, making Mike bat him away with a shake of his head.

“Fuck you too, Rich,” Stan replied, a smile evident in his voice.

They all let themselves chuckle at that.

Then, Stan cleared his throat. “I wrote to you guys. Uh, you know...Before...And I’m still going to send them out when I get home. I think that even though I’m still here, you deserve to read what I wrote to you guys. Just don’t expect me to be that sentimental when we all have a real,  _ happy _ reunion.”

And then they did have a happy reunion, about two months later: Ben and Bev’s wedding, a small get-together on the beach, and Bev’s dress fell around her ankles and didn’t bother to cover any marks on her arms, because it was a day full of all the people who would never judge her for it, and Richie gave a loud, drunken, funny toast to “the cutest straight couple I know”.

Then, another few months passed, and they had another happy reunion, for Richie and Eddie’s own wedding. Their guests consisted of the losers, Patty, Richie’s mom, and Richie’s manager, as well as one of Eddie’s co-workers whom he was quite friendly with, and also liked Richie’s stand-up, and therefore ecstatic to attend.

All the memories of Eddie laughing at his jokes, playfully punching his shoulders, and pressing their cheeks together in the photo booth came flooding back as the two of them swayed in place to “Lovesong” by The Cure, the feeling of Eddie holding him close still so foreign, yet also familiar at the same time.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed!! feedback is really appreciated xoxo


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